Choiseul, island, western Solomon Islands, southwestern Pacific Ocean. It is located 30 miles (50 km) southeast of Bougainville Island, P.N.G., across the Bougainville Strait. Choiseul is 83 miles (134 km) long and 20 miles (32 km) across at its widest point and is largely surrounded by barrier reefs. The island is densely wooded and mountainous, culminating in Mount Maetambe (3,500 feet [1,067 metres]). The main coastal settlement is Sasamungga. Copra is the chief product; subsistence crops include taros, sweet potatoes, and yams. In World War II the Japanese, thrusting southward from New Guinea, invaded Choiseul (1942) and occupied the northern segment until their surrender in 1945. Parts of Choiseul were devastated by a tsunami that hit the western Solomon Islands in April 2007.

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country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of a double chain of volcanic islands and coral atolls in Melanesia. The country comprises most of the Solomons chain, with the exception of Buka and Bougainville, two islands at the northwestern end that form an autonomous region of Papua New...

body of salt water extending from the Antarctic region in the south to the Arctic in the north and lying between the continents of Asia and Australia on the west and North and South America on the east.

easternmost island of Papua New Guinea, in the Solomon Sea, southwestern Pacific. With Buka Island and several island groups, it forms the autonomous region of Bougainville. Geographically, Bougainville is the largest of the Solomon Islands, located near the northern end of that chain. Bougainville...